photo by Jim Herrington
Peter Pizzino grew up in Milwaukee’s old Third Ward. These scenes of life in the Italian neighborhood during the 1920s and 1930s are excerpted from Peter’s Story, co-authored with Tom Montag and published in October.
The Healer
The man had been in bed for weeks. His legs were stiff. He couldn’t get out of bed, and he certainly couldn’t walk.
We were at an apartment above a barbershop on Jackson Street in Milwaukee’s old Third Ward. Stefano had heard the man needed help.
Stefano was a healer from West Allis who came to the Third Ward on Sundays. He was 80 years old, about 6 foot 4, lanky and thin. He had a bony face, high cheekbones, sunken cheeks, a little mustache, long sideburns. His face was dark and radiant, an olive color. He was originally from Stefano, Italy. I was about 8 years old, and he had taken me on as a helper.
Stefano told me to take one leg of the man in bed and start massaging at the hip, pulling it the best I could. He did the same on the other leg. Then we went to the toes and started pulling them. We each worked the arch of a foot, rubbing. We rubbed the heels. We worked the calves. We massaged the calves and thighs, then turned the man over and laid him flat on the bed with a pillow under his stomach and another pillow so his head was comfortable. We rubbed the cheek of the buttocks toward the lower spine, the fifth lumbar. We worked on the back, coming down the spine, toward the eye of the back. There’s a little bone there, and we worked on that. You could hear him moaning. You start softly, then put a little force to it. If you see tightness on his face, you ease off. Then go at it again.
When you touch certain parts with your fingers, you can feel the energy going through him. You keep working slowly. You can’t do it all at once. You might have to come back and do it again. If you try to rush, the body will tighten up and you’ll be back to the beginning. You pray to the Lord to give you the energy to heal.
Finally the man smiled. He was saying in Italian that he’d never felt the circulation like that. We turned him over on his back. We each took a leg and moved it back and forth. We’d bend them, and he’d scream. Back and forth, we kept working. Then we heard cracks, these different sounds; you could feel them in your hands. We had his legs moving. He could move his toes.
We got big towels to put underneath him, got a big bowl of vinegar and lukewarm water, and washed his whole body. As we did that, we wanted to catch the demons with our hands and throw them out; cast them into the air. You go from the head down – shoulders, arms, elbows, lower arms, hands, fingers – and wash him clean. The back, the legs, the crotch, the toes, between the toes, everything. When we were done, we washed him again with clear, lukewarm water, and put a towel over him.
We were pulling out the demons that caused all the tightness and stiffness in his body. We could feel in our hands what we’d been doing, and afterward we had to wash ourselves, to wash it off.
We worked with that fellow for two or three Sundays. First he could sit in a chair. Then he could walk a little bit, from the bed to the chair. Finally, he was walking outside. All the demons were out of his system. He could walk again.
Stefano lived in West Allis and on Sundays came by streetcar to Pompeii Church for 9 o’clock Mass. After Mass he would stop at one of the houses in the neighborhood where dinner was prepared for him and his family. Then he would go around the community to see sick people.
I was just a boy, but my father had already felt the healing power of my hands and would take me to neighbors who needed the help of my touch.
My dad invited Stefano and some of his family to dinner at our house. My dad told him I went out to help sick people in our neighborhood. Stefano touched me and I felt a strong vibration. I felt so good to meet this man. I looked up at him and felt safe.
One day Stefano said to my father in Italian, “I want to take your son with me sometime.” He arrived after church and we had strong Italian coffee in little cups and these little cookies, and afterward walked together in the old Third Ward.
There was an old woman who had arthritis so bad her fingers looked like claws. Stefano took one arm and showed me how he massaged it. The woman was moaning and groaning. Her fingers were so twisted. I worked on the other arm and hand and rubbed them for about 45 minutes. Stefano showed me how to massage the fingers, to pull a little bit, not too hard. We wanted to give her a sense the pain would be taken away. You’d try to straighten out the fingers very gently, yet it hurt her. Afterward we washed our hands. Her fingers were not straight, but now she could use them, and use her wrists again. I was amazed.
I felt so proud to walk with Stefano. I was a little guy. I would put my hand in his big hand and look up at him. He had that thin mustache, very thin, and his dark skin shone.
I learned things the five or six times Stefano took me with him. I don’t think he was teaching me so much as I was watching what he was doing. I watched and learned.
Stefano never took money for what he was doing. He might have a meal, or maybe a glass of wine.
He told me in Italian, “You have it in you, Pietro. You can heal people. Just believe in what you are doing. Believe in yourself, that you have that strength from the spirit.”
Making Wine
Every fall, people in the neighborhood made wine. They would wait until September to buy the grapes, which started changing then. Each family would buy different quantities; one might order 45 cases, another 35, some other maybe 10 or 15. Then they pooled their grapes and made wine.
The grapes would get delivered and 40 or 50 people would gather in one of the basements in the neighborhood, maybe Santoro’s, maybe Sam Catalano’s. The women would wash their feet before getting into the tub to crush the grapes. The tub was tilted slightly, so the juice ran to a drain that funneled into bread pans. The women got in and started stomping; the men got the accordion and the mandolin and they played music. The women would be dancing on the grapes then – squish, squish, squish.
The neighbors had gathered empty whiskey barrels. These were washed out, then the inside surface was torched to get the whiskey out of the wood. The men took the bungs out of the barrels, took the bands off, and washed the barrels well, put them back together and dried them in the sun. Fifteen to 25 barrels would be prepared, depending on how much wine they were going to make.
As the juice drained out and filled the pans, it was put into the barrels. When a barrel was full, the men rolled it out of the way, set it upright, and put a spigot in tight. The women would be dancing and squeezing the grapes and the men would be filling and moving barrels.
When it was the men’s turn to crush the grapes, the women washed their husband’s feet. Now recorded music would be played, everyone singing and dancing. People had been drinking wine from a few years earlier, and the men in the tub were laughing, stomping grapes, holding each other up.
Wine would be made at other houses in the neighborhood, too. Some people had a wine press, which moved from house to house, but pressing grapes wasn’t as much fun as stomping them. Winemaking was a celebration. The women would be giggling, stomping the grapes, falling off balance and holding each other up; then the men would do it. My father was usually involved, and in the end, we’d get about five barrels, white wine and red wine.
In December, the men would start to check the barrels. They put sulfur in for a day or two, then took it back out. Then for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, each family would tap a barrel of the young wine. To make sure it wasn’t turning to vinegar.
Stealing Spaghetti
We had been playing outside near the corner saloon, Max Maglio’s at Jefferson and Clybourn. The place served food – pasta, meatballs, sausage. Waiting for customers, the chef would sit outside with the men who were playing cards there; his name was Chubassi Bellistrari. He had a mustache, wore an apron and dressed in white. A heavyset fellow, very cheerful, he always sang Italian songs while he cooked.
We had finished our game of Hunt the Wolf and saw there weren’t many customers in the dining room. It was hot, in the 90s. We had been thinking, “We’re hungry,” and here we saw the meatballs and sausages and pasta on big platters all laid out. So we made a plan. We ran into the dining room. Chubassi stood there looking at us; he didn’t expect it. One fellow grabbed the meatballs, one the sausages, one the pasta, and away we went. The chef started chasing us with a butcher knife. We looked back, our hearts pounding like crazy. As heavy as he was, Chubassi was going pretty good. He stopped and we stopped. This way we could catch our breath. Then he restarted the chase. So we got a couple blocks away. He stopped again, shook his fist at us. He turned back.
We ate; and when we took his dishes back, the platters, he was swearing in Italian. But he didn’t mind. The next morning we went in and helped him clean up the kitchen and prepare for another day’s work.
Bonfires in the Night
In those days, it seemed like the sun stayed out forever. We’d play baseball, and we let the girls play. And they’d fall down. You’d see their bloomers. We were bashful, but we looked too.
You’d hear the guys whisper, “Did you see her bloomers?”
A girl hit the ball and ran to first base. She was tagged out. “No, no, I’m safe,” she said. Then she’d start jumping on you, pulling your hair.
“OK, you’re on first base.” We’d give in because she was a girl.
When the game got done, we’d go home and wash up. We’d gotten awfully dirty in the dust of that empty lot. We had to clean our shoes before going into the house. Some of the boys had to stay home then and practice the accordion or the trumpet. You could hear them working on scales. Back outside, the rest of us would wonder, “What shall we do?”
So we’d play “Kick the Can” or “Hunt the Wolf,” and the girls played with us. In “Hunt the Wolf,” one person is It, and all the others run and hide, and when she saw you, you had to run back and tag the pole before she did, and you were safe.
The girls would hide with us. We’d be giggling because we had not played so much with the girls before. We were a little older now, and the girls would be with us all the time.
We’d be hiding in the dark. Sometimes we never got found. Barry Trucking was nearby, and sometimes we’d hide in the trailers there. We’d push the girls to help them get up and in, then we’d have to jump so we could get up there. We might have to try jumping four or five times because we were so short. We’d sit talking softly, and when we heard someone coming we got quiet. Whoever was It couldn’t jump high enough to see us in there.
But that wasn’t really playing the game fair, so we’d come out.
“Oh, you guys, hiding in there, you cheat!”
“No, no, we weren’t cheating.”
“You were cheating!”
And then we were pushing and shoving. A couple guys would be on the ground slugging each other. Mothers would come out of the houses and scream at us, and that was the end of that.
Some nights we played “Kick the Can” in the street. There weren’t many cars, but still you had to watch out. I’ve kicked the can right through a window, broke the window, and had to pay for a new one. In those days it was only 15 cents to put a new piece of glass in. The houses were close to the street.
Neefa’s Grocery was there along Jefferson and the Fish Market. People were sitting out on their porches after supper. The smell of cooked fish or spaghetti and meatballs still hung in the air. Nobody had fans or air conditioning, so they’d sit on the porches and talk, saying this fellow didn’t work too hard today, or that fellow is drunk, he’s had too much wine.
Some nights the neighbor who had a radio brought it out on the porch. We’d all sit nearby, maybe 50 families listening to that one radio. The fights would be on. Maybe we were listening on Thursday, June 29, 1933, when the announcer would have exclaimed, “And in this corner, weighing 276 pounds, Primo Carnera!” Primo was a big Italian fighter, 6 foot 6, who often won by knockout. He threw an uppercut that night in 1933 and knocked out Jack Sharkey in the sixth round at Madison Square Garden to win the World Heavyweight Title. The Ambling Alp from Italy, as he was called – who was said to eat 19 pieces of toast, 14 eggs and a half-pound of Virginia ham for breakfast, and to wash it down with a quart of orange juice and two quarts of milk – was the new World Champion! You can imagine that Little Italy roared.
The fights were broadcast from New York or Chicago. It would be hot some evenings, maybe 100 degrees. Down on the corner, at the Brite Spot tavern, people were outside listening to the fights too, and kitty-corner over at the Canadian Club.
At the same time, we’d be making a bonfire in the street. There weren’t many cars in our neighborhood, mostly horses, so there wasn’t much traffic, and we’d pile up the wood and set it afire. Sometimes the flames went 30 feet high. We’d roast corn and wieners and sausages and marshmallows. Maybe put some potatoes in the coals. You had to pay attention to where you put your ear of corn or potato so you could find it when it was done.
When the fight was over, the men might bring out accordions and banjos, mandolins, guitars and violins. They played music and people danced in the street.
By 9:30 p.m., the fire was dying down. We went on patrol with buckets of water, putting the embers out. We had to clean up, sweep all the debris out of the street. It was dark by this time. We had one street lamp in the middle of the block, but it lit up the whole area.
And then you’d start to hear parents whistling for their children to come home. It was time to go in. My sisters would go to bed. I’d go and slice potatoes into the frying pan with a little water, a little olive oil, some chopped onion, some green pepper, making supper for my dad, who worked until 10 p.m.
Wood for Stoves
We cut up railroad ties in the summer. The boys, girls and mothers all helped the men. Our group cut wood for 40 homes, to stockpile fuel for the winter. Each area of the neighborhood would have its Model T and buzz saw. A few blocks away, another group would be cutting wood for another 40 families. It was a community-wide workday.
The men used flat-bed wagons pulled by teams of four horses. The wagons were maybe 15 feet long. Two men handled a wagon, one holding the reins, the other helping lead the horses when necessary, forward and backward. They’d take the teams to the place where the railroad discarded old ties, load the wagons, and deliver the wood to the yard where we were working.
The Model T was used to power the saw. A wheel would be pulled off the car and a pulley put in its place. A wide leather belt ran from the pulley back to the buzz saw. The car would be up on jacks. The men would start the car and the rear wheel turned the saw and we’d start cutting wood. Oh, the sound – whoo-zzzzzzt, eeeee-ah-ing. The saw sang, again and again.
But you had to be careful. I would shiver whenever I saw anyone get close to it. We started with big piles of railroad ties, and very quickly there were piles of foot-long pieces of sawed wood. You could put the pieces into the monster stoves with big openings; those big cookstoves were famous. For the smaller stoves, we had to split the wood down. A bunch of us young fellows – in bib overalls and apple caps, no shirts, high shoes, shoelaces untied, looking like bums – took our double axes and split the pieces to a size that would fit into a potbellied stove.
Everybody worked. We’d get blisters on our hands, as big as half-dollars, and they would burst. Your arms got jarred like crazy as the ax hit the wood. You had to be careful that you didn’t cut your feet. Sometimes you didn’t hit the exact center of the piece and a splinter of wood flew off and hit your leg. Finally you’re going like 60 – one, two, three, chop, chop.
We made a pile for one family and pushed the wheelbarrow full of wood to another house. Seven or eight families got the wood, and then the men moved the Model T and saw to another yard.
The women would be pulling the sawdust away from the machine with shovels and brooms and the girls would help; they’d save the sawdust for starting fires.
Sometimes the Model T Ford running the saw conked out, and the men would sit down and take a drink of water and scratch their heads, and someone would run to get the mechanic.
This work would go on for three or four days. The women cooked pasta, meatballs, sausage, and we’d eat good.
There were well-to-do men sawing the wood, the same as the rest of us. These men brought the food, the beef, the sausages. People cared for one another. Everyone helped each other.
Afterward, you had to clean up the yards. We had an old broken-handled shovel, no gloves, and I got a sliver in my left hand, about an inch long and half an inch wide. I screamed like something you’ve never heard.
The neighbors’ wives came over, gracious, and took the sliver out, washed my hand with hot water and put iodine on the wound. Then clap-clap, “It’s okay,” and you’d go back to work.
On the Town
We’d be sitting on the steps at the Busalacchi macaroni factory on Clybourn, a bunch of us. “What are we gonna do this afternoon?” we’d ask.
“Want to go to the beach?” someone offered.
“Let’s go to the Plankinton Arcade,” someone suggested.
So we started walking toward Plankinton and Wisconsin avenues. We’d poke into stores along the way. We might stop in the cigar store at the corner of Milwaukee and Wisconsin; it had candy as well as tobacco. The tall, gray-haired owner would say to us, “Now you boys behave.”
“Oh, no problem,” we’d tell him.
Then we’d snatch bags of candies while he was busy selling cigarettes or cigars or talking to a customer about pipes. He’d try to watch us, but he missed the timing.
At Plankinton and Wisconsin, we might walk into the Buddy Squirrel. We’d get the guy going nuts, maybe 40 of us going in and out, and he got turned around and couldn’t watch us all. You’d grab a bag of mixed nuts and take off.
The Riverside Theater was near Buddy Squirrel. The theater used to hire piano players as musical accompaniment for movies or stage shows. Sometimes we’d sneak in. One of us would have a dime and buy a ticket. The rest of us went to the side door along the river, and the guy inside would open the door for us. We saw Jack Benny that way, and Burns and Allen, Pat O’Brien, the Canadian Songs, Jack Carter, and Kate “When the Moo – oon Comes Over the Mountain” Smith.
“Hey, Kate,” we yelled at her, “you’ve got your riding clothes on. Where’s the horse? Oh, the horse couldn’t hold you. You’re too big.”
“You boys be quiet, or I’ll have you thrown out.”
“Well, there’s about 40 of us, so you’ll have to help them.”
“If you keep quiet, I’ll sing you a pretty song.”
The audience applauded. So we were quiet. And she did sing well. We were being stupid, thinking we were big shots.
West of the Riverside Theater was a shop that sold taffy apples; the owner made the taffy himself. He was a bald-headed and muscular young man. His eyes were always happy. He worked the taffy, back and forth. We’d watch.
“Can we have a sample?”
He took a big knife and – WHONKK – cut a piece of taffy for us a foot-and-a-half long. The whole gang had some. We’d pass the chunk around and you pulled on it to get your share.
Then we’d go across the street to the Plankinton Arcade. The fellows who managed the Arcade dressed up in suits and ties. When we walked in, they didn’t like it so much.
“You boys are not supposed to be in here.”
“Tell that to the whole gang, will ya.”
“Well, all right. Behave.”
We’d go down the marble staircase. There was a marble fountain there and wrought-iron railings. Downstairs were men’s stores, a dress store, a tobacco shop, a pool hall and a bowling alley. As I remember, Liberace came in every day to play piano from 2-4 p.m., for a dollar an hour. That must have been about 1939, when he was 20 years old. I must have been about 16. We usually didn’t pay that much attention to him. We bowled and shot pool. Somebody would hit a ball too hard and – “That’s it!” – the fellow running the pool hall wanted to club one of us.
Sometimes we’d sit on the marble steps or around the fountain. There were swans there, a palm tree, lush green fronds. You could look up into the glass tower above you; it went up for three or four stories. We were poor kids and yet here we were, sitting with marble floors and marble pillars and marble steps all around us. It was a beautiful building.
Sometimes we’d come in early to see if we could bum some food. The bartender would say, “Now don’t go near that table.” It had fish on it, or cold cuts, Coca-Cola or cream soda, root beer. We didn’t listen very well. We were long-haired punks who did what we wanted.
We had been coming to the Plankinton Arcade off and on for several months, and we were sitting there another day. “What should we do? Sam, sing something for us.”
“Sing. What shall I sing?”
“Anything.”
We goofed around and the manager came over and said, “You can’t do that, boys. This is a public place.”
“That’s why we’re here,” we all said. “It’s a public place.”
“You behave now, boys.”
We sat there a while longer, and the goofing around started again. What should we do? What should we do?
We made a plan.
Liberace was there playing. We had 40 of us and there was only one of him. So we went over and picked up the piano and the piano bench with Liberace sitting on it.
“Hi, Libby.”
He kept playing.
“Hi, fellas,” he said. “Please behave.”
We started to move the piano around the room.
“Now you keep playing,” we told him. “You play, and we’ll move you with the piano.”
“No. I don’t want to, fellas.”
“Libby, if you stop playing, you don’t make any money. Keep playing.”
“Fellas, please. Please, fellas.”
“Play, Libby.”
The bowling alley went silent. All those old codgers chewing their cigars, standing in T-shirts and suspenders, were watching us in amazement.
Liberace was wearing his tuxedo, a bow tie, a white shirt. His hair was beautiful. His complexion shined. He was well-trimmed. He kept playing and we kept moving the piano.
“Fellas, please,” he whispered. He had to sing, too; he was singing some of the songs.
We moved the piano and the bench with it in a wide circle, and finally came back to where we’d started. We set the piano down. Liberace had five minutes yet to play.
Some of us went over to the bar. We knew the bartenders there and said, “We need some sandwiches for Libby. He’s only making a buck an hour.”
“I know you guys,” one of the bartenders said. “You’re screwing around all the time.”
“No, no, really,” we said.
So we got some soda water and sandwiches, and bagged them up. We took them over to Liberace. “Here, Libby, take these home with you.” It was a big bag of sandwiches.
“Oh, thank you, fellas,” he said. “You’re not so bad after all.”
Milwaukee native Peter Pizzino operated Baywood Tailors for many years. Tom Montag is a Wisconsin poet and writer. They’ll read from Peter’s Story at the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop on Downer Avenue on Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. Books are available at local bookstores or by writing MWPH Books, P.O. Box 8, Fairwater, Wis., 53931.
